Hi Jaynee,
I hope that your recent trip was practically perfect in every way, and I'm super excited to hear that you're planning another visit to the Walt Disney World Resort already! Hooray!
While every family is different, my husband and I prefer to drive all in one day. It usually takes us between 14 and 15 hours or so, depending on traffic, but I do admit that we are pretty hardcore travelers. We pack everything up the night before we're planning to leave (including a breakfast that we can easily eat on the go) and hit the road really early in the morning. Now that all of our Mouseketeers are a little bit older, we usually only stop twice - once at lunchtime and once at dinnertime to fill up the tank with gas, hit the restroom, and grab some food, which we take with us and eat on the go. (My parents like to joke with us that there's
no way we could ever caravan together, as they stop much more frequently! Ha!) The kids take turns choosing DVDs to watch during most of the day, which definitely helps the time to pass quickly. We usually arrive at the most magical place on earth around 8:00 p.m., and our favorite way to kick off our visit is to celebrate with
fireworks before heading to our Disney Resort hotel to get settled in.
When I was a little girl, we did stop partway through the drive, usually in southern Georgia. We'd have just a little over three hours to drive when we woke up in the morning, and I remember feeling like those last few hours felt just as long as the entire day's drive from the previous day. I was just so anxious to get there! My husband and I have found with five kiddos that it's just easier to buckle down and do the drive all in one day, but we don't mind the drive. We actually find it to be fun in its own way.
Thanks for bringing me this great question, Jaynee, and I hope that this helps! Happy planning!
Missy